Groundhog Day II: Robinho's Adventures in England

So...

First season at Spurs, I signed Robinho, but didn't look at the bit where he couldn't play for more than X teams in a year. Oops. 9m down the toilet. Anyhow, the chappie got very cross with me, not playing and the like and missed training all the time and racked up a lot of fines. The next season arrived and he became eligible. I was looking forward to giving him a go. 2 Europa League games later and an average of 6 point not-a-lot-at-all I sold him to Everton for 14m.

Good grief. I was glad to get rid of him.

Then... I got sellers remorse... a lot. Everton played him correctly (it's my tactics!) and in 2 seasons he racked up 41 goals.

And then fell out with David Moyes. Back on the transfer list he went. As i'd adjusted my formation and noted similarities with that of Everton I made a 15m bid as even though we'd had a bad encounter before, he had goals in him.

He arrives to great pomp and circumstance and promptly scored.... after 21 games. He then got 4 more by April, by which point i'd transfer listed him and demoted him to the reserves for being a turd bucket.

A move to Ajax collapsed as I refused to pay some of his wages, before the unthinkable.... Everton bid 8m. They wanted me to pay some of his wages too. Ordinarily I'd refuse but I kind of liked the idea of him bouncing between clubs like a yo-yo so I accepted and now.... he's scoring lots of goals again.

It sounds daft, but as long as I possibly can, I'll try and buy him back, if only for the amusement value of it all.

Anyone else got any examples of ping-pong careers?

I sometimes put buy back clauses on youngsters I sell, because they develop and come good. But I have never gone back to a player who failed to shine for me. Your post was very amusing, but I could never do that on FM.

not really ping-pong but I bought a Portsmouth youngster (now a Stoke player IRL) for Manchester United and bought him again a few years later as Porto manager, I never played him.

i've just put a bid in for Robinho again for a laugh. I can imagine if it was IRL he's be so confused. His pudgy little face would be perplexed indeed.

That is something Bill Murray would be proud of.

I had a similar relationship with Matt Derbyshire in FM07. As Liverpool, I signed him early on. He never performed. I loaned him out to a lower PL side, he scored again. I gave him a run in the side when he came back from his loan... and he didn't score. After his second loan and third spell in the side, I got rid of him for good.